News Feed

Courses are well underway in Design Lab 1, and at this point the room is buzzing with students solving problems creatively and collaboratively. There are currently three courses (Hands-On Robotics, Designing Web Interfaces, and Interactive Media Design) and three special interest groups (Electronic Lunch, Michigan Animation Club, and Derivative TouchDesigner enthusiasts) that meet in Design Lab 1—you can see the full schedule here.

The Design Lab consultants have been thoughtfully observing activity in the rooms for several weeks. Many students and faculty have been kind enough to share their work with us, and now with the world!

Hands-On Robotics

The Design Lab 1 staff developed a video during the 2013-2014 school year that outlines some of Hands-On Robotics professor Shai Revzen’s teaching strategies.

Interactive Media Design

On October 9, consultant Peter Littlejohn writes:

Alex stayed after Interactive Media Design today to work on the Max/MSP patch for his upcoming game project. The game will make use of continuous sensing data sent from an Arduino through serial to Max, focusing on the physical interaction of the player.

Designing Web Interfaces

On October 15, consultant Raj Brueggemann writes:

Seth Ellis’ Designing Web Interfaces course at a moment during critiques of students’ work. Seth pulled up each project on the project for the class to view and observe. In particular, the class tried to judge how readable and navigable each site was, as well as the visual and aesthetic qualities. Building good websites is growing as an essential tool for designers, and this class demonstrated that fact, as students from Architecture and Engineering joined in the class critiques. Students were also able to view and navigate the websites individually from their desktop workstations.

Electronic Lunch is starting up again this Friday (in Design Lab 1) at 12:00! It’s going to be a happening time, so please come to discuss a large-scale installation project coming up and our annual workshop series (think Arduino, hardware-hacks, Processing, Max, Raspberry Pi, etc.). We want your input! Again, this Friday from 12:00-1:00.

Also, if you can’t make it (try not to get too upset), go ahead and join our email list* here to stay in the loop on upcoming events!

This year, Professor Gurevich is teaching Interactive Media Design (PAT 451/551) in Design Lab 1. PAT 451′s enrollment has doubled since last year, and meeting in Design Lab 1 gives the students a chance to stretch out and construct large-scale projects.

PAT 451 students are expected to design interactions in the real world using both digital and physical tools. The course has previously met in the Electronics Workbench, and has held many year-end project exhibitions in Design Lab 1. The Design Lab consultants are excited to support this unique course in a bigger, better way this year.

Professor Gurevich regularly uses the document camera in Design Lab 1 to show his students how to configure their Arduino microcontrollers and make them drive physical objects.

Below, two of our undergraduate consultants—both of whom are currently enrolled in the PAT program—observe Interactive Media Design students working on their projects.

September 30

Consultant Isaac Levine writes:

Helped Peter and Gabe code their Simon game for Prof. Gurevich’s Interactive Media Design class. Gabe was fretting about an object he forget to declare, but it was a quick fix. Ambika (dancer) is working on a photography assignment in the background.

October 7

Consultant Peter Littlejohn writes:

Kevin is documenting an Interactive Media Design project after learning to use the video capture station for the first time. Meanwhile, Alex is making use of the Max/MSP software with an iLok from upstairs.

Marionnect 2.0 was inspired by a project called “Virtual to Physical Puppet” created by former Electronic Lunch members Teresa Dennis, Jason Prasad, and Mathew Schwartz. Kinect and Arduino technologies are used to make a small puppet mimic the motions of a human.

September 15

Finishing up coding and testing the Kinect -> Arduino interface.

September 29

Getting the servos to talk to the Kinect during web interfaces. Working, but very jittery and slow.

October 1

Six servos! Currently updating at 2 Hz after changing the command array from a 56 character string to a 10 byte array. Servos permitting we can probably get this thing updating at at least 20 Hz…